Today, many content publishers on the Internet can publish a list of recent articles or changes to articles in the form of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. An RSS feed is accessible by accessing a published URL on the Internet. The RSS feed generally is an XML file containing the recent articles and changes to articles published by the content provider. The content of an RSS feed may include, for example, a series of small snippets (one or two paragraphs for example) about various topics of interest published by the content provider. The snippets can be termed “atoms.” The atom of the RSS feed may, for example, include an entire article or blog post, or it may include only part of an article or blog post.
Typically, a user can go the URL of the RSS feed and retrieve the RSS feed by copying the link of the URL to the RSS feed into a RSS reader. A RSS reader may be a program or webpage used by a user that provides, in a user interface, an organized view for the contents of multiple RSS feeds subscribed by the user at once. With the RSS reader, a user could go to a single webpage or could open a single program that manages a plurality of RSS feeds subscribed by the user. The RSS reader can have a list of the URLs associated with XML files, and can periodically go to the URL of an XML file to read the XML file and determine if the contents have changed since the last time it examined the file. If the RSS reader has determined that the contents have changed, it knows that there are new articles and can display the new articles/blog posts or a subset thereof designated in the XML file of the RSS feed.
A problem with current RSS feeds is that they do not provide updates to a user's specific topic of interest, but rather give updated material on the various topics provided by the supporting website which may include other items of information. For example, a user may be interested in purchasing a new cell phone and may opt to subscribe to RSS feeds of various technology websites in order to get the latest information in the cell phone industry. But instead of only providing information related to cell phones, the user may be provided with a multitude of updated information that may not be related to cell phones.